Page 38 of Cathmoir’s Sons (Bad Boys of Bevington #5)

Chapter 38

Pecking Disorder

LAW

M y mate is a wonder.

Watching her teach her class of eager Plane-Walkers fills in another tile in the ever-shifting mosaic of my mate’s persona. She may never set foot in a classroom again, but she will always be a teacher at heart. Joy is writ large in every glance, every line of her face, as she imparts the knowledge she’s gathered. Like my twin, the engine that drives my mate is intellectual curiosity. The chance to share that curiosity, to feed it, is a pleasure for her surpassing a dozen orgasms.

I commit myself to giving her two dozen orgasms to compensate for the loss of her teaching position.

Per day.

She’s bubbling with residual enthusiasm after the last student leaves. I lean against the first row of desks and pull her between my legs while she expounds on an alternative Plane-Walking theory suggested by one of her students. Her ice-blue eyes dance. Her hands fly between us as she gesticulates. As she pauses for a breath, I lean in and rub noses with her.

“Good class?”

She laughs softly. “Yeah, good class.”

“I’ll make sure you always have the opportunity to share your knowledge, even if I have to build you a new school in Scilla.”

Her smile curves wide. “I got an email from Sapienza. They’re offering me an adjunct teaching position on Professor Dybo’s recommendation. One class per semester. No strings.”

“I doubt it will be the last offer you get. The whole magickal academic world will be after you if you make it known you’re leaving Bevington.”

She worries her lower lip between her front teeth. “This storm will pass, won’t it?”

I’m not sure whether she’s referring to the storm currently raging in the Straits or the shitstorm at Bevvy, but I nod. “It will.”

“In a few years, no one will care that I dated a group of students.”

“No one will care. Although Dean Quinn may still demand a favor or two.”

Caileán laughs. “I don’t mind doing Emilia the occasional favor. We just have to get through this. I felt guilty, looking at my class today and knowing I won’t teach next semester because of my choices.”

“Do you regret choosing us?”

The softest, sweetest smile curves her lips before she presses them to mine. Her busy hands come to rest on my cheeks. “No, I will never regret choosing you.”

I hold those words tightly in my heart a few hours later when we sit in a cold conference room in Bodeman Main, facing down The Mr. Black.

I still don’t quite understand how this rolling boulder started its way downhill. Rhodes said something to Lords who said something to Carver. I didn’t catch the nuances of why Carver stormed into Jane Serpa’s office while Jane was recounting her visit to a Chinese ice festival. I got the gist of his hysteria, though. He wants to close Caileán’s exhibit because he thinks she’s brought a dream demon to Bevington.

I sit next to my queen on one of the school’s truth-bespelled chairs and listen to Carver rant.

“. . . wholly irresponsible, bringing a bunch of cursed relics to a school. Our students aren’t fully-fledged magi yet. They’re still learning to defend themselves from magickal influences, and you bring a demon among them!”

If it’s a demon he wants, I can arrange a personal visit. I cross my arms over my chest.

“That’s exactly why we warded the museum so heavily,” Caileán responds when a very red-faced Carver pauses in his diatribe. “You took part in that warding. I thought you understood that the Chalice of Sulis Minerva, as well as some of the objects in the exhibit, can exert a very dark influence.”

Carver’s ruddy cheeks darken further. “Yes, but not a demonic influence! You never said anything about demons, Professor Wyndham.”

“I understand why you’re upset, but I don’t see a difference between the Cup’s influence and a demonic influence. They can both kill,” Caileán says.

“We could have warned our students!” Carver fulminates. “We could have told them to be on guard. To report anything like the nightmares Yan Wozniak evidently suffered from which drove him to suicide.”

I lick my fangs before interjecting, “I’d think you’d encourage them to report any sort of suicidal thoughts, Carver, whatever the cause. Stop trying to pin this on Caileán.”

Carver snarls back at me. “You are here on sufferance, Prince Lawson. Because you’re Professor Wyndham’s personal security. You don’t have any place in this discussion.”

“As a concerned alumni as well as Professor Wyndham’s consort, I have every place in this discussion.”

Carver leans back in his chair with a grimace. “Yes, let’s discuss that. When, exactly, did your relationship with Professor Wyndham start?”

I don’t even bother trying to lie, given where I’m sitting. But he doesn’t deserve the whole truth from me, either. “From Professor Wyndham’s perspective, after the battle of Jedburgh Abbey. She immediately cut off contact when she discovered I was still a student. Our relationship didn’t recommence until after I submitted my application for early graduation.”

“Bullshit.” Carver grabs a folder out of a briefcase at his feet and tosses several blown-up photographs on the table. They’re gray and grainy, but unmistakably Caileán standing in my arms, framed by the bedroom window at Jane Serpa’s house. “This proves you’ve been together for months.”

“That was taken days ago after an evening I spent with Dean Quinn,” Caileán says, her tone cold. “The Dean will tell you that I disclosed my relationship with Law, Luca, and Rhodes to her two days later, when we reconciled.”

“ After I’d applied for early graduation,” I reiterate.

“But your brother and Rhodes Hale remain students at this institution. I appreciate that you and Professor Wyndham have struck some sort of illicit deal with Dean Quinn, but I won’t be compromised in that way. This will go before Academic Standards as soon as Erasmus returns from his very conveniently timed vacation, mark my words.”

I lift an eyebrow at him. Did he really just say “mark my words”?

I feel Caileán growing more and more tense beside me. Before he upsets her any further, I say: “I hope there’s no confusion here. Professor Wyndham is a Queen of Faery. The lost fifth Crow Queen. I am the Heir of the Cait Sidhe. I am her consort. My brother is her consort. Rhodes Hale, who has just taken the Blue Mantle of the Aedis Astrum, is her consort. Professor Theodora Nowak is returning to Bevington at Professor Wyndham’s request to leverage Professor Wyndham while she hunts for Ulune’s Daughter, a magickal artifact that the late Doctor Prince felt was so important she left Professor Wyndham a message about it from beyond the grave. In the face of all that, this is the battle you’re picking? To make a stink with Academic Standards because we claimed our fated mate while we’re still students?”

Carver’s mouth puckers. I bet something further south is puckering, too. I don’t like to throw titles or connections around. I’d prefer to stand on my own four paws. But if this narrow-minded asshole is going to pick a fight with us, he should remember who he’s making his enemy.

“I wouldn’t, of course, ask you to compromise yourself,” I continue, “but you may want to consider how far out on a limb you’re willing to go.”

Carver’s eyebrows shoot toward his hairline. “Are you threatening me?”

“Yes,” I say evenly, even as Caileán hisses, “No.”

“You and your brother have been problem children for years,” Carver grumbles. “You may have done an end-run around Academic Standards by graduating early, but your brother is still a student. If you want him to have a prayer of graduating, Professor Wyndham, you, and Rhodes Hale will immediately leave campus?—”

I snort to cut off his diatribe. “If you want to work anywhere except a human fast-food chain for the rest of your life, you’ll keep my mates’ names out of your mouth. Want to throw your weight around? I’ll have you suspended without pay by dinner time. I am Cait Sidhe . I am the eyes and ears in the shadows. I know where you go. I know what you do. I’ve left you alone until now because Luca’s going for salutatorian, and I didn’t want to rock the boat. But you’ve clearly mistaken me ignoring you for weakness. Try me and you won’t ever make that mistake again.”

Caileán relaxes back into her chair as I speak. Her trust in letting me deal with the chief crow spreads through me, warm and sweet. Is there anything better than protecting the family we’re building? Nothing makes me feel stronger, more sure of myself. Cait are shadows, slippery and fleeting. But if Carver throws himself against this shadow, he’ll find a wall of onyx, sharp and unmoving.

Carver sits back in his chair, too, but he’s not at all relaxed. His shoulders are drawn up. Sweat dots the skin between tie and chin. In dealing with him for three years, I’ve realized he’s a man who is drawn to secrets. He doesn’t just expose them. He hoards them: a crow picking up shiny stones and carrying them back to its nest.

Men like Carver, who treat secrets like gold, are often the men who have the most to hide. I’m counting on it as I threaten him.

“I want you off campus,” he says.

The nervous working of his throat betrays him.

“I have no reason to be on campus except when I’m protecting my twin or our mate. You need not worry about me. Professor Wyndham, my brother, and Rhodes Hale will finish out their Winter Study terms. That’s not negotiable. After that, only Prince Luca will remain on campus. You will do nothing to disrupt his studies.”

“If he’d stay out of trouble, I’d have no reason to,” Carver points out.

“The Mirk are defeated for now. The search for Ulune’s Daughter takes us across the ocean. I suspect whatever trouble Luca finds will be far removed from Bevington, but I won’t make any promises. Prince Luca is a warrior of the Cait Sidhe. He is a consort of Ceòfuar. He will do his duty wherever it takes him.”

Carver looks extremely sour. “One more semester, then the four of you are out of my hair.”

I suspect that Luca will want at least one more degree, but he doesn’t need to get it at Bevington. Like Caileán, he’ll be in demand once he graduates. If Caileán ends up at Sapienza, Luca might want to join her there. And hells, I might really build a school for them.

Possibly even in Hell. I know a certain demon lord who would be very in favor of that.

“Indeed,” I say, although I’m not necessarily agreeing with him. “Are we finished?”

“No,” Carver grumbles. “I want the exhibit closed while I investigate Yan Wozniak’s death. I understand that won’t make Dean Quinn happy. The exhibit’s a draw. But it’s too big a risk.”

I glance at Caileán. I don’t have any strong feeling about the exhibit being open or closed, particularly during Winter Study, which isn’t traditionally a time Bevvy’s students spend their days in the museum anyway.

She looks unhappy but resigned. She shrugs.

“We’ll agree to that for now,” I say, giving him this concession. “We’ll revisit it at the end of Winter Study.”

Carver grunts. I make a mental note that we’re likely to face resistance from the chief crow at the end of the month.

I may have to make sure the man sitting across from me is no longer chief crow by then.

To avoid Carver finding another bone to pick, I slide my hand down the back of Caileán’s arm and cup her elbow. Although I can’t see them, my fingertips sink into the softness of feathers.

“Ready, my queen?”

She nods gratefully and rises. Her mantle spills around her, feathers sweeping the floor. Her face is cool, distant, but the appearance of her feathered cloak tells me that beneath her facade, she’s in the grip of strong emotions.

Once I have Caileán moving, I take a parting shot at Carver. “Since I no longer have any academic concerns, my sole focus now is the welfare of my family. Any issues you have with Professor Wyndham, my brother, or Rhodes Hale, you will direct to me. Anything that concerns Bevington and Faery, Cait or no, you will direct to me. Fail to involve me and you won’t retain your position long enough to regret it.”

Carver snarls at me, showing long incisors, hinting at what I’ve long suspected from his scent. Somewhere, buried under chemicals and decades of denial, Carver is a predator, too.

“I don’t answer to you,” he says.

I smile as I open the conference room door and usher my queen through. Before I close the door behind us, I shoot back. “You do now.”

I’d intended to return to Jane Serpa’s office with Caileán, to let my queen spend more time with her mentor. However, in the wake of Carver’s threats, I feel the need to retrench. I take my queen’s hand and lead her out of Bodeman Main into the bracing air of a Massachusetts winter afternoon.

She looks up at me as we descend the building’s wide steps. Trustingly. So trustingly. I slip my arm around her shoulders and thank the Mother for the long hunt that’s led us to this point, where my mate gazes at me with such trust.

“Luca and Rhodes are at the den,” I tell her.

I barely have to feel for my twin in my mind now. I stretch out a paw and he’s there: warmth, comfort, safety, blood, fur. Luca . He’s curled up with Rhodes, admiring the man’s stupidly broad shoulders, as they talk about everything and nothing. Ugh. Post-coital relaxation with the human. Disgusting. But joining them will relax Caileán, so I’ll endure naked-human time.

She smiles. “I can hear what you’re thinking.”

Can she? I wouldn’t put it past her.

“I’m thinking that my brother and the human should be done with their alone time, but they have an alarming propensity for remaining naked afterwards. If we find them still naked, you’ll help me bleach my eyes?” I ask hopefully.

She snorts. “No. Be nice to Rhodes.”

“I am nice to the human.”

I haven’t tried to kill him in ... months. Well, perhaps weeks, but close enough.

“Be nicer to Rhodes. I could hear you thinking you wanted to find Luca and Rho and regroup.”

“Ah, yes, I do. I don’t pretend to know when this happened, but the two of them have become a steadying influence. Don’t tell the human I said that.”

Caileán bumps her cheek into my shoulder. “Acknowledge the good parts about the four of us being together. It smooths over the less-good parts.”

“So, you acknowledge there are less good parts, like the human’s nakedness?”

“ Law .”

I chuckle. “I will admit in private, and only to you, that I am very satisfied with our foursome. Luca and his human provide a perspective that I’ll admit I lack sometimes when I become overly focused on your safety or that of the Cait.”

Caileán stops and stares at me. She digs in the pocket of her coat, takes out a coin, and drops it to the icy pavement.

I narrow my eyes at her.

“You’re checking that gravity is still online, aren’t you?”

She breaks into wild giggles.